wherever you go, be there

gallivants

Not one to ease into things gently, my very first bout of solo travel was a 500-mile hike across Spain. And it was fantastic. Stunning scenery, great people, amazing food … I can’t think of a better deep end to jump into.

Yet another couple of firsts—my first long motorcycle road trip (a two week ride from Cebu to Manila and back), and my first Philippine road trip in general. Definitely not enough time to truly appreciate it, but a good reconnaissance mission for the larger ride to one day follow.

After realizing that archipelagos aren’t the most conducive to road trips, I decided to try my hand somewhere a little more biker-friendly, Vietnam. Riding Vietnam is a bikepacker rite of passage, and the three weeks I spent traveling from Hanoi to Saigon were some of the best I’ve spent on the road.

Two weeks of driving a tiny rental hatchback places where tiny rental hatchbacks shouldn’t go, wild camping in the middle-of-nowherest places I’ve ever been, living with a forever sun, and stalking puffins. As hype as that may sound, it barely scratches the surface of the amazingness of this trip.